CUBA: DAY 4, HAVANA

Breakfast buffet at the hotel (they put on quite a spread) and then off to Las Terrazos, which is a community 1.5 hours from Havana, in the country, that is focused on ecological preservation.  It has about 200 people who live there, a school, a doctor, and lots of ecology projects.  They have developed a nice tourism program with a small hotel and campground and restaurants for tourists.  While there, we visited two artist studios – one makes his own paper and then prints his paintings on cards and small-size prints.  The other is a painter.  Both were interesting.  Then we stopped for coffee at Maria’s house – she is famous for giving one cup of coffee (Cuban coffee is espresso with a bit of natural sugar mixed in) to workers and visitors as they pass by.  She is now a little old lady but her establishment still goes on. 
Then it was off to a farm house outdoor restaurant where they cook only over charcoal.  We ate under thatched-roofs accompanied by a terrific band (I bought the CD, of course).  The food was rice and black beans and shredded beef and chicken and was one of the best meals I’ve had so far.  (One comment about beef in Cuba:  it is rare because cattle require much more resources to raise than pigs or chickens.)  Oh yes, and a drink was included with lunch of course and this time I went for the Cuban dark beer Buckanero (muy fuerte!, as it says on the label).  Yum.  It’s so hard not to just start dancing everywhere because of the music that is always playing – it is an infectious rhythm.

Then it was off to visit the house of a famous Cuban artist, Jose Fuster, who has turned his house into a mosaic wonderland that he calls Fusterlandia.  I would describe his style as Picasso meets Gaudi.  Wonderfully whimsical.  He has also persuaded his neighbors for a couple of blocks in all directions from his house to allow him to turn their fences and outer walls into mosaic works of art.  Even the nearby bus stops are mosaic.  Fascinating.

Next stop was a craft market – a big warehouse (HOT in there!) with dozens of sellers offering cheap trinkets, hand-crafted items, paintings, conga drums, etc.  It was a mad house but interesting.  You do not see sellers all over the streets – they are confined to special markets and this is one of the few ways people can make extra money.  I ended up buying a small painting of an old American car on the street under a sign saying Havana Club (the national rum).  Not fine art but I couldn’t resist.

Let me digress for a minute and talk about toilets.  It became a topic of interest on my African trip (there’s a fun story about the resident frog in the toilet in one of the lodges) and once again toilets became a subject of attention in Cuba.  Because our hotel was a fancy hotel, the toilet in our bathroom had a toilet seat, toilet paper (Cuban toilet paper is very rough, much like what we call paper towels at home), and there were little bars of soap at the sink.  We discovered that to actually flush anything down the pipe, we had to pull the flush lever four times in rapid-fire succession.  Anything else just didn’t work.  And, of course, throughout Cuba, as in many other countries, you must put your used toilet paper in a canister that is always placed beside the toilet (which makes public toilets odiferous, however clean they are and they are pretty clean).  But that’s not the irritating part.  For the most part, no toilet paper is available, so you must bring your own (we were warned ahead of time), and you must also bring your own soap for washing your hands (I always carried a little hotel bar of soap in a small plastic bag).  And then, the public toilets do not have seats and they are really, really low to the ground.  A couple of times today I really had to think for a minute, trying to marshal my forces before getting up.

On a more pleasant note, I saw my dream car this morning – a ’57 Chevy Belair, white and creamy lemon yellow.  And it was in beautiful shape.  Mmmmmm.  I’ve lost my heart in Havana (or Habana as it is most often spelled here).

We decided to go out clubbing again after dinner and bought tickets to the Buena Vista Social Club show.  OMG, I had no idea the group that was revitalized by Ry Cooder in the ‘90s was still going strong, with even some of the original people and a few new ones who are slightly younger.  And my hats off to the two female singers – old broads with pipes that still sound good and they’re still wearing high-heeled shoes!  The show started at 9:30 and they played non-stop.  We left at 11 PM and were told that the show goes until 12:30!!  I don’t know how they do it but we had a grand time.  I am now officially, really tired with two days of busy touring left. Having fun isn’t always as easy as it looks!